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noun
Publican  n.  
1.
(Rom. Antiq.) A farmer of the taxes and public revenues; hence, a collector of toll or tribute. The inferior officers of this class were often oppressive in their exactions, and were regarded with great detestation. "As Jesus at meat... many publicans and sinners came and sat down with him and his disciples." "How like a fawning publican he looks!"
2.
The keeper of an inn or public house; one licensed to retail beer, spirits, or wine.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Publican" Quotes from Famous Books



... mountain was a considerable distance off, it happened that at the first halt, an artisan remembered that he had to deliver a new pair of slippers to a duke and peer, a publican fell to thinking how he had some specie to ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part III. • Honore de Balzac

... Blueland, according to the colour of their prevailing uniforms. Meanwhile Herr Heinrich confessed almost promiscuously the complication of his distresses by a hitherto unexpected emotional interest in the daughter of the village publican. She was a placid receptive young woman named Maud Hickson, on whom the young man had, it seemed, imposed the more poetical ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells

... to go on kneeling, ashamed to rise from his knees. At last, as it were from his inmost heart, a still, small voice seemed to breathe forth the words of the publican, "God be merciful to me a sinner!" He repeated them over and over, and rose from his knees comforted and humbled, and ready to ...
— The New McGuffey Fourth Reader • William H. McGuffey

... Prisident was nominated and shtand afore the fire, lookin' loike a pictur', wid his hands in his shmall pockets, an' his innocent bit of a face as sayrious as a jedge? An' sez he to me: 'Mary,' sez he, 'I'm very much int'rusted in the 'lection,' sez he. 'I'm a 'publican, an' so is Dearest. Are you a 'publican, Mary?' 'Sorra a bit,' sez I; 'I'm the bist o' dimmycrats!' An' he looks up at me wid a look that ud go to yer heart, an' sez he: 'Mary,' sez he, 'the country will go to ruin.' An' ...
— Little Lord Fauntleroy • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... much so," whispered Erica to Frolich, "as that the Holiest should be found in the house of a publican." ...
— Feats on the Fiord - The third book in "The Playfellow" • Harriet Martineau

... stifled laughter of the onlookers, the strange meal proceeded; and when it was nearly at an end, a clownish fellow passed by, blowing on a rustic pipe. But for Don Quixote, who had transformed the inn into a castle, the fat publican into a powerful governor, and the vagabond damsels into high-born ladies, it was an easy matter to find in those rude notes a strain of rare music, provided for his delectation while he sat at table; and he concluded his repast in a state of high ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry

... cases of conversion at these Meetings. Amongst others there were the two daughters of a publican. When one sister was saved the other went to hear Mrs. Booth on purpose to ridicule the services. But she was seized with such an agonizing realization of her sins that she came down from the top of the gallery to the penitent- form, crying ...
— Catherine Booth - A Sketch • Colonel Mildred Duff

... by prostituting herself, retained it by prostituting others. Maria Theresa actually wrote with her own hand a note, full of expressions of esteem and friendship, to her dear cousin, the daughter of the butcher Poisson, the wife of the publican D'Etioles, the kidnapper of young girls for the haram of an old rake, a strange cousin for the descendant of so many Emperors of the West! The mistress was completely gained over, and easily carried her point with Louis, who had, indeed, wrongs of his own to resent. His feelings were not quick; ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... the pope, whereas the latter has never ventured to take any such step against the Church. In fine, the words of Christ himself are decisive of the question—"If any man neglect to hear the Church, let him be unto you as a heathen man and a publican." This injunction was addressed to St. Peter equally with the rest of ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... blood of the Son of God, and trifling with the gracious invitations of his Redeemer: surely, if he be not lost to sensibility, mixed emotions of guilt, and fear, and shame, and remorse, and sorrow, will nearly overwhelm his soul; he will smite upon his breast, and cry out in the language of the publican, "God be merciful to me a sinner." But, blessed be God, such an one needs not despair—it is to persons in this very situation, and with these very feelings, that the offers of the Gospel are held forth, and its promises assured; "to the weary and heavy laden" ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce

... singing. Silence was allowed to spread her wings within the woodland temple. Toyner, kneeling, felt the influence of other human spirits deeply vivified in the intensity of prayer. He heard whispered cries and the sound of tears, the prayer of the publican, the tears of the Magdalene, and now and then there came a glad thanksgiving of overflowing joy. Toyner tried to repeat what he heard, hoping thereby to give some expression to the need within him; but all that ...
— The Zeit-Geist • Lily Dougall

... f'en's, I want to ax you, who was behind Ab'aham Lincoln? Who was it helt up dat man's han's when dey sent bayonets an' buttons to enfo'ce his word—umph? I want to—to know who was behin' him? Wasn' it de 'Publican pa'ty?" There were cries of "Yes, yes! dat's so!" One old sister ...
— The Strength of Gideon and Other Stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar

... for Slimak and his wife. She had bought a silk kerchief at a stall, given twenty kopeks to the beggars, and sat down in the front pew, where Grybina and Lukasiakowa had at once made room for her. As for Slimak, everyone had something to say to him. The publican reproached him for spoiling the prices for the Jews, the organist reminded him that it would be well to pay for an extra Mass for the souls of the departed, even the policeman saluted him, and the priest urged ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various

... educated in the plain. The miller and his wife were mightily astonished and even more pleased. They thought it a very good thing that they should have opened their inn. 'You see,' the old man would remark, 'he has a kind of talent for a publican; he never would have made anything else!' And so life wagged on in the valley, with high satisfaction to all concerned but Will. Every carriage that left the inn-door seemed to take a part of him away with it; and when people jestingly offered him a lift, he ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson

... besides her bounty I'm fairest in the county (For so I've heard it said, Though I don't vouch for this), Her promised pounds may move Some honest man to see My virtues and my beauties; Perhaps the rising grazier, Or temperance publican, May claim my wifely duties. Meanwhile I wait their leisure And grace-bestowing pleasure, I wait the happy man; But if I hold my head And pitch my expectations Just higher than their level, They must fall back on patience: I may not mean to wed, ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti

... myself on my feet. But as no one was in sight, I queried whether this was not the enemy of my soul, to keep me from prayer, and fell upon my knees a third time, determined to remain in the position of prayer until my first petition to my Heavenly Father was presented. And the prayer of the publican was repeated over and over again, "God be merciful to me a sinner." These words above all others seemed just for me. I was a sinner, and mercy was what I wanted. I returned to the house with a still more fixed resolve to continue asking, with a firmer purpose never to give over until ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland

... the government of his kingdom; but the great principle was proclaimed of a common brotherhood as children of God our Father, and of love to him as such. In his sermon on the mount, the parables of the lost sheep and silver piece, the good Samaritan, the prodigal son, the Pharisee and the publican; in his private teachings to his disciples; and, above all, by his daily example he taught and illustrated, as the leading characteristics of his kingdom, love to God, the brotherhood of man, the rights of all, however poor, degraded, or despised. More, he makes this idea of brotherhood ...
— Is Slavery Sanctioned by the Bible? • Isaac Allen

... letter. My calendar in this sequestered spot is as irregular as Robinson Crusoe's after he had missed one day in his calculation. I have no intelligence to send you, unless a battle between a drunken attorney and an impudent publican which took place here yesterday may deserve the appellation. You may perhaps be more interested to hear that I sprained my foot, and am just recovering from the effects of the accident by means of ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan

... visible acts,—but in a continuous penitential relation of the heart to God. The Christian, conscious of his innate corruption and his daily sinning, faces God at all times in the attitude of a humble suitor for mercy. The posture of the publican is the typical attitude of the Christian. He recognizes no merit in himself, he pleads no worthiness which would give him a just claim upon God's favor. His single hope and sole reliance is in the merit ...
— Luther Examined and Reexamined - A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for Revaluation • W. H. T. Dau

... part, Father," replied the other, "if you care to know my name, I am called Brotteaux, and I was a publican ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France

... hath shaped for me What the future life may be. Other lips may well be bold; Like the publican of old, I can only urge the plea, "Lord, be merciful to me!" Nothing of desert I claim, Unto me belongeth shame. Not for me the crowns of gold, Palms, and harpings manifold; Not for erring eye and feet Jasper wall ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... sacrifices to Bacchus, in preference to that of his neighbour, he who endeavoured to entice the lieges, by exhibiting a red-faced man, in a scarlet coat, that was called the "Head of George the Second." It would seem that the commendable activity of the alert publican was not to go without its reward. The tide of custom set strongly, for the first half-hour, towards the haven of his hospitable bar; nor did he appear entirely to abandon the hopes of a further influx, even after the usual period of such arrivals began to pass away. Finding, however, ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper

... Insurance Agent; Mister Peter Snagget, Grocer; Mister Alphonso Pumper, Rate Collector; Mister Bill 'Iggins, Publican; Mister Walter Weed, Clerk; Mister Jeremiah Ramsmouth, Local Preacher; Mr. 'Ookey Snagg, Loafer; Mister William Guppy, Potman—place them beside Hybrias, Goat-herd; Damon, Shepherd; Phydias, Writer; Nicarchus, Ploughman; Balbus, Bricklayer; Glaucus, ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren

... that a man full of evil should be so ignorant of his evil as to say, like that Pharisee in our Lord's parable, 'I thank Thee that I am not as other men are. I give tithes ... I pray ... I am this, that, and the other thing; not like that wretched publican over there.' Yes, this is the fit attitude for us,—'He would not so much as lift up his ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... generous, and pure, though he is quarrelsome and not particular in his talk, is a far finer fellow, both in point of view of this world and the next than the smooth-faced prig who thanks his Lord that he is not as this publican. ...
— Memoirs of Arthur Hamilton, B. A. Of Trinity College, Cambridge • Arthur Christopher Benson

... a public-'ouse to get a pint o' beer, The publican 'e up an' sez, "We serve no red-coats here." The girls be'ind the bar they laughed an' giggled fit to die, I outs into the street again an' to myself sez I: O it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, go away"; But it's "Thank you, Mister Atkins", when the band ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling

... hundred guineas, was fought at Bognor, Bucks, between a farmer of the name of Mitchell, who resides at Bognor, and a publican of the name of George. The match was made in consequence of a dispute respecting their merits as boxers. The battle lasted fifty-five minutes, in the presence of about one thousand spectators. It was what a professional boxer would have termed gluttony from beginning to ending. ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol I, No. 2, February 1810 • Samuel James Arnold

... popularity would grow upon us! When all the children came to look at us, and the tailor, and the general dealer, and the farmer who had been giving a small order at the little saddler's, and the groom from the great house, and the publican, and even the two skittle-players (and here note that, howsoever busy all the rest of village human-kind may be, there will always be two people with leisure to play at skittles, wherever village skittles are), what encouragement would be on us to plait and weave! No one looks at ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens

... Sept. 21st. This Apostle and Evangelist, before his call to the apostleship, was known as Levi, the publican, or tax-gatherer. He may possibly have been the brother of St. James the Less, and of St. Thomas also. He was the first to write a Gospel, which he addressed to the Jews, his aim being to show that Jesus was the Messiah. It is probable that he alone, of all the New Testament ...
— The Church Handy Dictionary • Anonymous

... Newton with whom Mrs. Unwin could associate, or to whom she could look for help in sickness or other need. The house in which the pair took up their abode was dismal, prison-like, and tumble-down; when they left it, the competitors for the succession were a cobbler and a publican. It looked upon the Market Place, but it was in the close neighbourhood of Silver End, the worst part of Olney. In winter the cellars were full of water. There were no pleasant walks within easy reach, and ...
— Cowper • Goldwin Smith

... who is meant. So that to be poor in spirit is to be in inmost reality conscious of need, of emptiness, of dependence on God, of demerit; the true estimate of self, as blind, evil, weak, is intended; the characteristic tone of feeling pointed to is self-abnegation, like that of the publican smiting his breast, or that of the disease-weakened, hunger-tortured prodigal, or that of the once self-righteous Paul, 'O wretched man that I am!' People who do not like evangelical teaching sometimes say, 'Give me the Sermon on the Mount.' So ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren

... supposed to be simply taking one side in one of those perpetual controversies which has occupied many generations and never approaches a settlement. He prefers nature to law, instinct to reasoned action; he is on the side of Charles as against Joseph Surface; he admires the publican, and condemns the Pharisee without reserve; he loves the man who is nobody's enemy but his own, and despises the prudent person whose charity ends at his own doorstep. Such a doctrine—so absolutely stated—is rather a negation of all morality than a lax ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen

... WELZEL, the publican, a good-natured giant, upwards of fifty, stands behind the counter, letting beer run from a ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume I • Gerhart Hauptmann

... high or however humble in the scale of society, can disqualify for this life of Christian activity and usefulness! Who were the writers in the Bible? We have among them a King—a Lawgiver—a Herdsman—a Publican—a Physician! Nor is it to high spheres, or to great services only, that God looks. The widow's mite and Mary's "alabaster box of ointment" are recorded as examples for imitation by the Holy Ghost, while many more munificent deeds are passed by unrecorded. We believe that God says, regarding ...
— The Mind of Jesus • John R. Macduff

... publican shuts up shop and ceases to diffuse liquid poison, he does not invite the world to put up the shutters; neither will I. Actors overrate themselves ridiculously," added she; "I am not of that importance to the world, nor the world to me. I fling away a dirty old ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade

... wall is a window of three lights (by Hardman) in memory of Rev. C.W. Grove, who presented most of the modern glass in the church. The subject is the Pharisee and the Publican. It is not known whether the Pharisee is intended to be a portrait of any one, but the Publican's face is said to be an excellent portrait of Mr. Grove, and the portrait of the lady in the top light (she lacks a halo) is deemed to be an equally good ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Abbey Church of Tewkesbury - with some Account of the Priory Church of Deerhurst Gloucestershire • H. J. L. J. Masse

... above all things, that some other does wrong, commits error and is brought to shame; and their motive is simply that they themselves may appear upright and godly. Such was the attitude of the pharisee toward the publican, in the Gospel. But love's compassion reaches far beyond its own sins, and ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. II - Epiphany, Easter and Pentecost • Martin Luther

... of eating for equalising men. Dying is nothing to it. The philosopher dies sententiously—the pharisee ostentatiously—the simple-hearted humbly—the poor idiot blindly, as the sparrow falls to the ground; the philosopher and idiot, publican and pharisee, all eat after the same fashion—given an equally good digestion. There's theory for ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... postmaster alarmed and wondering. Chauvenet and Durand were well mounted on horses that Chauvenet had sent into the hills in advance of his own coming. Zmai rode grim and silent on a clumsy plow-horse, which was the best the publican could find for him. The knife was not the only weapon he had known in Servia; he carried a potato sack across his saddle-bow. Chauvenet and Durand sent him ahead to set the pace with his inferior mount. They talked together in low ...
— The Port of Missing Men • Meredith Nicholson

... text John IX, 31: "Now we know that God doth not hear sinners,"(232) is thus explained by St. Augustine: "He speaks as one not yet anointed; for God also hears the sinners. If He did not hear sinners, the publican would have cast his eyes to the ground in vain and vainly struck his breast saying: O God, be merciful to me, a sinner."(233) Moreover, since there is question here of extraordinary works and signs only (viz. ...
— Grace, Actual and Habitual • Joseph Pohle

... the dramshop; and the carpenter, that indispensable functionary on an isolated estate, had "drunk up" all his tools (which did not belong to him, but to our hostess) at this man's establishment. The sly publican did not offer to return them, and he would not have so much as condescended to promises for the misty future, had he not been aware that the law permits the closing of pothouses on the complaint of proprietors in just such predicaments as this, as well as on the vote of the peasant Commune. Having ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood

... marry a wife, I'll marry a publican's daughter, I 'll sit all day long in the bar, And ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley

... vile publican," he shouted and brandished a bottle like a crowbar. "If yonder rascals dare to approach me I'll smash their heads, to teach them respect for my cloth, which proves in an ample ...
— The Queen Pedauque • Anatole France

... to drink," I have heard a clergyman say of his village publican. But what else did he think the publican was there for?—to preach total abstinence? Naturally, inevitably, the whole of the Trade is a propaganda—not of drunkenness, but of habitual heavy drinking. ...
— New Worlds For Old - A Plain Account of Modern Socialism • Herbert George Wells

... publican.' A publican, you must know, was a tax-gatherer. He used to collect the taxes from the people. They did not like to pay their taxes, and so they did not like the tax-gatherers, and despised them. And thus the pharisee thanked God that he was not like that publican. 'I fast ...
— Caleb in the Country • Jacob Abbott

... wretches, after toiling hard to obtain their wages, had no sooner received a cheque or draft from their employers in settlement of what was due them, than they would rush to the first public-house; and, placing their cheque in the hands of the publican, would commence a course of mad dissipation; merely requesting to be informed when the money was expended. This had been told him, and also that the victims, after being kept in a state of delirium for a week or so, had it intimated to them that their funds were exhausted; that they had ...
— Fern Vale (Volume 1) - or the Queensland Squatter • Colin Munro

... The publican drew a writing-tablet from the folds of his robe, counted the horses, and recorded the ...
— Herodias • Gustave Flaubert

... peripatetic Cheap-Jack holding aloft his quack cures for human ills. Here the sleek capitalist and there the sinewy laborer; here the man of science and here the shoe-back; here the poet and here the water-rate collector; here the cabinet minister and there the ballet-dancer. Here a red-nosed publican shouting the praises of his vats and there a temperance lecturer at 50 pounds a night; here a judge and there a swindler; here a priest and there a gambler. Here a jeweled duchess, smiling and gracious; ...
— Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome

... did not hear sinners, in vain would the publican have said, God be merciful to me a sinner"; and S. Chrysostom says[245]: "Every one that asketh receiveth—that is, whether he be just man or sinner." Hence the prayers of sinners ...
— On Prayer and The Contemplative Life • St. Thomas Aquinas

... way to worship; and in petty cruelties practice the lust of murder, interrupting it to shudder at a profane oath uttered by some good fellow outside in the street. To love God and your neighbour, summed up, for Christ, all the Law and the Prophets: and his love was for the harlot and the publican, as his worst word always for the self-deceiver who thanked God that he was not as ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)

... heard it seriously asserted of me that I am a great pugilist! and very far in conduct and manners from what one might expect, and so forth. Now it has just come to my knowledge that a sporting publican and dog-fancier, who called his public-house in the Waterloo Road 'The Greyhound' (my crest), and has my name over the lintel, has claimed to be the author, and is supposed to be myself! Mr. Payne (my publisher) told me about the 'pugilist,' ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... Christ should dine With a rich sinner publican, Nor knew his act of grace would shine, A star of hope, to fallen man. Zacchaeus assured his royal guest, "Lord, half my goods I give the poor; And if I falsely have opprest, ...
— The Mountain Spring And Other Poems • Nannie R. Glass

... following motto, which, for want of room, I put over-leaf, and desire you to insert whether you like it or no. May not a gentleman choose what arms, mottoes, or armorial bearings the herald will give him leave, without consulting his republican friend, who might advise none? May not a publican put up the sign of the Saracen's Head, even though his undiscerning neighbor should prefer, as more genteel, ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb

... slight additional daub upon a character so deeply stained already? But think of me, the immaculate lover of Truth, so observant (as I have told you p. 8) of 'hault courage and strict honour,'—and (aside)—'and not as this publican'—do you think I can let you go scot free instead of myself? No; noblesse oblige. Go to the shades, old man, and boast that Achilles ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman

... that of a farmer of Roman taxes—in order to become the wandering disciple of a reputed carpenter's son. He became, it is true, in due time, an Apostle, an Evangelist, and a Martyr; and if posthumous fame be worth the ambition of any man, Matthew the publican—Saint Matthew as we call him—has his share thereof, because he discovered, like a wise man, that he could not serve God and money; and therefore, when Jesus saw him sitting at the receipt of custom, and bade him "Follow Me," he rose up, and left his money-bags, and followed Him, whom he afterwards ...
— Westminster Sermons - with a Preface • Charles Kingsley

... was to bring back Fawcett, and by negotiations with Homer, the Hackney publican (Secretary of the Licensed Victuallers' Protection Association), into which I entered because Fawcett's defeat had been partly owing to the determined opposition of Sir Wilfrid Lawson's friends, who could not forgive his attacks on the direct veto, I succeeded ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn

... cannot find one in favor of teetotalism. On the contrary he will find plenty of texts which recommend the "wine that cheereth the heart of God and man;" and he knows that his master, Jesus Christ, once played the part of an amateur publican at a marriage feast, and turned a large quantity of water into wine in order to keep the spree going when it had ...
— Arrows of Freethought • George W. Foote

... one jewel I seemed outwardly poor, I was really richer and safer than many a Cardinal and many a Doctor of Divinity. A confession of faith, like a prayer, may be very long, but the prayer of the Publican may have been more efficient ...
— My Autobiography - A Fragment • F. Max Mueller

... fifteen miles' to church, it seemed possible that some profit might be made by serving refreshments to the parishioners. Mrs. Carter superintended this department, and it seems that the meals between the services soon became popular. But the story of 'a parson-publican' was soon conveyed to the Archdeacon of the diocese, who at the next visitation endeavoured to find out the truth of the matter. Mr. Carter explained the circumstances, and showed that, far from being ...
— Yorkshire Painted And Described • Gordon Home

... Publican, n. [pblican] Publicano, tabernero; posadero. Mniningil ng bwis sa Roma; ang nagtitind ng alak; ...
— Dictionary English-Spanish-Tagalog • Sofronio G. Calderon

... 1811. The day before her death, Sunday, she sat up in bed, worn and thin, her eye gleaming as with the light of a coming world, and with a tremulous, old voice repeated the following lines by Burns,—heavy with the shadow of death, and lit with the fantasy of the judgment-seat,—the publican's ...
— Stories of Childhood • Various

... JOHN JONES, a publican, says, at about nine o'clock on Saturday, the 30th of October, he saw a light in the Tower, which flickered very much like a candle, as if somebody was continually blowing one out and blowing it in again. He observed this for about half an hour, when it began to look as ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... travelled hard all that night and until the middle of next day, when we halted, for refreshment, at the house of one who was truly a "publican and sinner", for he ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems

... up and pay her money for." Ernest could hardly believe his ears, but when the doctor had seen his wife and she had become more quiet, he went over to the public house hard by and made enquiries, the result of which rendered further doubt impossible. The publican took the opportunity to present my hero with a bill of several pounds for bottles of spirits supplied to his wife, and what with his wife's confinement and the way business had fallen off, he had not the money to pay with, ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler

... his transgressions against society? Issuing from the sacred fane, their ears still ringing with the doctrines they have heard, the minister returns to his vexations, the courtier to his intrigues, the courtezan to her prostitution, the publican to his extortions, the merchant to his frauds, the trader ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 2 • Baron D'Holbach

... own devising, in which he perhaps praises himself more than God, or takes more pleasure in them than he does in God; and thus with his good works he storms against the Second Commandment and its works. Of all this we have an illustration in the case of the Pharisee and the Publican in the Gospel. [Luke 18:10 f.] For the sinner calls upon God in his sins, and praises Him, and so has hit upon the two highest Commandments, faith and God's honor. The hypocrite misses both and struts about with other good works by which he praises ...
— Works of Martin Luther - With Introductions and Notes (Volume I) • Martin Luther

... port and you stay awhile, and you find that the woman you've been thinking of as Queen of Sheba is no more nor a common drab. And the publican you thought of as the grand generous fellow has no more use for you and your bit silver gone. It's a queer thing, but they on land think of nothing but money. And one day you think, and the woman beside you is pastier ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne

... like Paul on the road to Damascus or like Matthew the publican, sitting at the receipt of custom, on whom there is laid a sudden hand, to whom there comes a sudden conviction, on whose eyes, not looking to the East, there dawns the light of Christ's presence. Such cases occur all through the ages, for He ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren

... at the Regent Club in St. James's Street—not at home. The fat red-faced man looked after him with astonishment as he strode away; so did the people in their Sunday clothes who were out so early; the charity-boys with shining faces, the greengrocer lolling at his door, and the publican shutting his shutters in the sunshine, against service commenced. The people joked at the cab-stand about his appearance, as he took a carriage there, and told the driver to drive him ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray

... can now be just and consistent while he justifies the ungodly who believe in Jesus. Short was the time between the thief's petition and the promise of salvation; nay, the petition was the earnest of it. The same was the case with the jailer; I think, too, the publican had the earnest in his petition. Now, instead of laboring to bring my mind to acquiesce in the condemnation of my child, on the supposition of its being for God's glory, I try to be still, as he has commanded: not to follow my child to the yet invisible ...
— The Power of Faith - Exemplified In The Life And Writings Of The Late Mrs. Isabella Graham. • Isabella Graham

... she was not perfectly happy. She had lately come across one or two rather deplorable cases. A very promising girl, daughter of a publican in the suburbs, had developed the same kind of powers, and the end of it all had been rather a dreadful scene in Baker Street. She was now in an asylum. A friend of her own, too, had lately taken to lecturing against Christianity in rather painful terms. Lady Laura wondered why people could ...
— The Necromancers • Robert Hugh Benson

... held that their calamities, and even crimes, were necessary to minister to her convenience. You say she was religious. Her religion must have been that of the Pharisee who thanked God that he was not as other men are, nor even as that publican." ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte

... notions; Samaritans, with their vaunted traditions: but He always went right beyond the outward show. The Samaritan was good and kind, though he got no credit for piety; the Pharisee was corrupt and self-seeking, though he got no credit for piety; the Publican was a child of God, though no one would speak to him. Christ reversed the judgment of men on those people whom they thought they knew so well, but did not know at all. So it shall be at the last; we shall be ...
— Life and Conduct • J. Cameron Lees

... Catty. Nick Flaherty's, the publican's? oh, the sinners! And this is the saint that Honor McBride would be passing herself upon us for? And all the edication she got at Mrs. Carver's Sunday school! Oh, this comes of being better than one's neighbours! A fine thing ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth

... the titles of the administrators of law, titles which should be in themselves so honourable, thus acquire a hateful undermeaning. What a world of concussions, chicane and fraud, must have found place, before tax- gatherer, or exciseman, 'publican,' as in our English Bible, could become a word steeped in hatred and scorn, as alike for Greek and Jew it was; while, on the other hand, however unwelcome the visits of the one or the interference of the other may be to us, yet the sense of the entire fairness and justice with which ...
— On the Study of Words • Richard C Trench

... sore chance for you, young man, hasn't it,—this lawsuit turning out against him?" said the publican, with a confused, beery ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot

... to perform the works attributed to Jesus is hardly sufficient ground for denying the belief that he really did them. For what is a miracle? Certainly that the greater portion of the New Testament was written by a few fishermen, a publican, and a tentmaker is one of the most stupendous miracles on record! And the miracle of miracles is Jesus Christ himself! Because Jesus is reported to have healed the sick, raised the dead, and walked the waves, all ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking

... to 'ave it here," rejoined the shoemaker, "and you've got to serve me, Ketchmaid. A licensed publican is compelled to serve people whether he likes to or not, else he loses of ...
— Light Freights • W. W. Jacobs

... the plaintiff was, wondrous the skill Wherewith she was wont her tall tankards to fill, The defendant, a publican, sought for his bride Such a paragon, urged by ...
— Briefless Ballads and Legal Lyrics - Second Series • James Williams

... because he was aware of his condition, was in a more hopeful spiritual state than the man who through ignorance of his own shortcomings believed himself to be righteous. The Pharisee, who compared himself with others to his own advantage, was condemned in the sight of GOD. The Publican, who would not so much as lift up his eyes unto heaven, but judging himself and his deeds by the standard of GOD'S holiness acknowledged himself a sinner, went away justified rather than the other. It is probably true that the ordinary man to-day ...
— Religious Reality • A.E.J. Rawlinson

... rubbed off his prejudices, and though he drank more often than any one else with the landlord of the Spotted Dog, he also quarrelled with him the oftenest, and testified the least forbearance at the publican's segments of psalmody. Jacob was a tall, comely, and perpendicular personage; his threadbare coat was scrupulously brushed, and his hair punctiliously plastered at the sides into two stiff obstinate-looking curls, ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... are generally divided into judicial and financial. But, as an old Indian official more exhaustively stated it: 'Everything which is done by the executive government is done by the Collector in one or another of his capacities—publican, auctioneer, sheriff, road-maker, timber-dealer, recruiting sergeant, slayer of wild beasts, bookseller, cattle-breeder, postmaster, vaccinator, discounter of bills, and registrar.' It is difficult to see how one ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore

... an apology. Amid all my hurry of business, grinding the faces of the publican and the sinner on the merciless wheels of the Excise; making ballads, and then drinking, and singing them; and, over and above all, the correcting the press-work of two different publications; still, still I might have stolen five minutes to dedicate ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns

... verdict for L100 damages. In 1794, The Morning Advertiser had been established by the Licensed Victuallers of London, with the intention of benefiting by its sale the funds of the asylum which that body had recently established. It at once obtained a large circulation, inasmuch as every publican became a subscriber. It exists to the present day, and is known by the slang sobriquet of the 'Tub,' an appellation suggested by its clientele. Its opinions are radical, and it is conducted not without a fair share of ability, ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various

... you are so lugubrious, or perhaps it is because they lack faith. The possession of the truth gives joy. Was Jesus sad? He used to go about surrounded by friends; He rested under the shade of the olive, entered the house of the publican, multiplied the cups, pardoned the fallen woman, healing all sorrows. As for you, you have no pity, save for your own wretchedness. You are so much swayed by a kind of remorse, and by a ferocious insanity, that you would repel the caress of a dog ...
— The Temptation of St. Antony - or A Revelation of the Soul • Gustave Flaubert

... consisted of either sugar or lager-beer—both excellent articles but hardly adaptable to bread-making. The climate, situation, surroundings, and want of means of recreation all combine to make the publican's business a lucrative one. When, as sometimes happens, a fossicker comes in with a "shammy" full of gold, and lays himself out to make himself and every one else happy, then indeed the hotel-keeper's harvest ...
— Spinifex and Sand - Five Years' Pioneering and Exploration in Western Australia • David W Carnegie

... more than we sometimes realize. Jesus grew up in an Oriental town, in the middle of its life—a town with poor houses, bad smells, and worse stories, tragedies of widow and prodigal son, of unjust judge and grasping publican—yes, and comedies too. We know at once from general knowledge of Jewish life and custom, and from the recorded fact that he read the Scriptures, that he went to school; and we could guess, fairly safely, that he played with his school-fellows, even if ...
— The Jesus of History • T. R. Glover

... the miracles reported. There are two miracles, that of healing ten lepers and the blind man of Jericho. The following show how large a place is given to teaching: (a) Concerning the coming of the kingdom; (b) concerning prayer, illustrated by the importunate widow and the Pharisee and publican; (c) Concerning divorce; (d) the blessing of little children; (e) the ambitions of James and John; (g) the visit to Zachaeus; (h) the parable of the pounds and the ...
— The Bible Period by Period - A Manual for the Study of the Bible by Periods • Josiah Blake Tidwell

... his approbation, and set forth to borrow the needful five dollars. Whatever the reason, he was not successful, and when they met again at Scab Johnny's, Mr. Gibney employed his eloquence to obtain credit from that cold-hearted publican, but all in vain. Scab Johnny had been too long operating on a cash basis with Messrs. Gibney and McGuffey to risk adding to an ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne

... Us is Methodists. A proud family, brought low by Mr. Hoover and his crowd. Had to sell our land. 'Spect us would have starved, as us too proud to beg. Thank God, Mr. Roosevelt come 'long. Him never ask whether us democrat or 'publican nor was us black or white; him just clothe our nakedness and ease de pains of hunger, and goin' further, us goin' to be took care of in our old age. Oh, how I love dat man; though they ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration

... advantages, Niel's personal, or professional, accomplishments won the heart of a jolly widow, who then kept the principal change-house in the borough. Her former husband having been a strict presbyterian, of such note that he usually went among his sect by the name of Gaius the publican, many of the more rigid were scandalized by the profession of the successor whom his relict had chosen for a second helpmate. As the browst (or brewing) of the Howff retained, nevertheless, its unrivalled reputation, ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... to? I meant as a present. Wine and spirit trade, indeed! Hang it! Do I look like a publican?" ...
— The Bag of Diamonds • George Manville Fenn

... Pharisee and the publican is reversed. The Pharisee tells his friends that he is in reality far worse than the publican, while the publican thanks God that he is not a Pharisee. It is only, after all, a different kind of affectation, and perhaps even more ...
— The Upton Letters • Arthur Christopher Benson

... ago a publican, who lost all his money, staked his public-house, lost it, and had to 'clear out.' The man who won ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz

... war with fate, the harassing conditions of daily life, and the apparent hopelessness of trying to improve their condition, do undoubtedly tend to make them 'drown their sorrows' and rush for relief to the fiery waters of that Lethe which the publican dispenses at so much a glass. Ask any of the temperance workers in the viler districts, and they will tell you how they have watched hundreds of decent folk come into a bad neighborhood, and gradually sink under the degrading influences of their surroundings. There are a few men ...
— White Slaves • Louis A Banks

... artful schemer, while the clerical place-seekers, who love the flesh-pots of Egypt and have their eyes on the thrones of the Church and the world, will denounce my 'secularity' and tell me I am feeding the 'miry troughs' of the publican and sinner. No matter, if only God is pleased to vouchsafe 'signs following.' And one weary-faced lonely girl, grown fresh of countenance and happy of mien, or one bright little woman, snatched from the brink of perdition, will be a better fruit, of religion than some of them ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine

... and impetuous behaviour of the sailor on shore. But on board he is a different being, and appears as if he were without sin and without guile. Let those, then, who turn away at his occasional intemperance, be careful how they judge. They may "thank God that they are not as that publican," and yet be less justified, when weighed in that balance, where, although Justice eyes the beam, Mercy is permitted to stand by, and throw into the scale her thousand little grains to counter-poise the ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat

... earliest converts. Mary Matthews, of Madeley Wood, went to hear him with the mind of the Pharisee, but she left his presence with the heart of the publican. Having obtained the pardon of her sins, she opened her little house for preaching, and stood firm, although threatened by some of the villagers with a drum- led mob, and eventually haled before the ...
— Fletcher of Madeley • Brigadier Margaret Allen

... gave the death-blow to his scruples was another. On the advice of a wealthy publican he was treating, whose judgment he trusted, Mahony had invested—heavily for him, selling off other stock to do it—in a company known as the Hodderburn Estate. This was a government affair and ought to have ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson

... never drank. But now he had twice sinned before the eyes of all Dillsborough, and Runciman thought that he knew how it would be with a young man in his own house who got drunk in public to drown his sorrow. "I wouldn't see Larry go astray and spoil himself with liquor," said the good-natured publican; "for more than I should like to name." Mr. Masters promised to take the hint, and rode off on ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope

... which shows itself by these true fruits of charity. They are the elect, and consequently, they are not like the Catholic Priests, who are all wicked. The reader may recollect the parable of the pharisee and the publican. ...
— Awful Disclosures - Containing, Also, Many Incidents Never before Published • Maria Monk

... How like a fawning publican he looks? I hate him, for he is a Christian: But more, for that, in low simplicity, He lends out money gratis, and brings down The rate of usance here with us in Venice. (E) If I can catch him once upon the hip,[24] I will feed fat the ancient grudge ...
— The Merchant of Venice [liberally edited by Charles Kean] • William Shakespeare

... stone of sugar; then at Randal Alston's, the shoemaker's, and paid for the repairing of a pair of boots, and put them under his arm; finally, he looked in at the Flying Horse and called for a pot of ale, and drank it, and smoked a pipe and had a crack with Tommy Lowthwaite, the publican. ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine

... hope, madam, you don't refer to my house; a publican I may be, but tavern is a word that I don't hold with; and here there's no bad drink, and no loose company; and as for my blessedest Kit, I declare I love him ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XV • Robert Louis Stevenson

... mentioned by your correspondent "B." (p. 245.) as prevailing in Gloucestershire, is not peculiar to that county. In Kent, it is commonly practised by the rustics. The publican, all the world over, decorates his sign-board with a foaming can and pipes, to proclaim the entertainment to be found within. On the same principle, these rustics hang up their sign-board,—as one of ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 19, Saturday, March 9, 1850 • Various

... professors of Christianity, whether their profession be true, or counterfeit, as it is understood, Mat. 18.17. where it is said, "Tell it to the Church, and if hee neglect to hear the Church, let him be to thee as a Gentile, or Publican." ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes

... was the way in which they got themselves mixed up with each other. Their names were so tangled up that no one could keep tally of them. There was a Red Mick Donohoe (son of the old publican), and his cousin Black Mick Donohoe, and Red Mick's son Mick, and Black Mick's son Mick, and Red Mick's son Pat, and Black Mick's son Pat; and there was Gammy Doyle (meaning Doyle with the lame leg), and ...
— An Outback Marriage • Andrew Barton Paterson

... which he doth answer those who would entangle him doth please me. To-day in the Temple he was cleverly attacked by some Pharisees who drew the attention of a crowd by accusing him of having such speech with a publican and a harlot as the Law doth not allow. With few words did he tell of a man who had two sons. To the one did he say, 'Son, wilt thou do a service for thy father?' and the son said, 'Nay.' To the other, the man did say, 'Son, wilt thou do a service for thy father?' ...
— The Coming of the King • Bernie Babcock

... "The publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God, be ...
— The Village Pulpit, Volume II. Trinity to Advent • S. Baring-Gould

... said that he "came not to destroy men's lives but to save them;" who declared, "of mine own self I can do nothing;" who modestly deprecated all personal homage, asking, "Why callest thou me good?" who sat with the publican, and forgave the harlot, and denounced bigotry in many an immortal breathing of charity; and who, even in his final agony, pardoned and prayed for his murderers! What reason is there for supposing that he who was so infinitely gentle, unselfish, forgiving, when ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... I saw and talked with Franz Siegel, the idol of the German Americans. He had been a lieutenant in his native country, but subsided, in St. Louis, to the rank of publican, keeping a beer saloon. When the war commenced, he was appointed to a colonelcy, in deference to the large German republican population of Missouri. His abilities were speedily manifested in a series of engagements which redeemed the Southern border, and he finally fought the ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend

... passed through the turnstiles, Arabella and her husband not far behind them. When inside the enclosure the publican's wife could see that the two ahead began to take trouble with the youngster, pointing out and explaining the many objects of interest, alive and dead; and a passing sadness would touch their faces at their every failure ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy

... trespasseth against us will neither be reclaimed by private admonition, nor yet by a rebuke given him before some more witnesses, then, saith Christ, "Tell it unto the church; but if he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican. Verily, I say unto you, whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven," Matt. xviii. 17, 18: where he showeth, that, in the Christian church (which he was to plant ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie

... merry dance in proper society and at proper hours, if I want to go to my friend's billiard table and play a quiet game, if I want to make merry over a few hits of backgammon, or give my energy full vent in rolling ten-pins for an hour, I am a heathen and a publican and unfit ...
— Amusement: A Force in Christian Training • Rev. Marvin R. Vincent.

... aware, throughout the whole of London, a single portico or other covered place, in which the people can take refuge during a shower: and this in the climate of England! Where they do take refuge on a wet day the publican knows but too well; as he knows also where thousands of the lower classes, simply for want of any other place to be in, save their own sordid dwellings, spend as much as they are permitted of the Sabbath ...
— Sanitary and Social Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley

... apostles"). According to Epiphanius that in use among the Ebionites was "not entire and full, but corrupted and abridged." Heresies, 30. 13. Jerome says: "Matthew, who is called Levi, having become from a publican an apostle, first composed in Judea, for the sake of those who had believed from among the circumcision, a gospel of Christ in Hebrew letters and words. Who was the person that afterwards translated it into Greek is not certainly known. ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows

... appeal to those who felt conscious of sin and wished for forgiveness, and I felt I belonged to that class, and listened with increasing eagerness. Was it for them to say, "I must then reform my ways and make myself better before I can go to Christ for pardon?" Oh, no! The prayer of the publican, "God be merciful to me a sinner," was heard and answered. Christ's invitation was addressed to the weary and heavy laden, "Come unto Me." He died to take our punishment instead of us; and those who, instead of cherishing sin, felt it a burden too heavy for them to bear, were to bring it ...
— The Story of the White-Rock Cove • Anonymous

... was the widow of a Plymouth publican who had sold his business and retired upon a small farm across the Hamoaze, near the Cornish village of Anthony. On the wedding morning (which fell early in July) she had, by agreement with her groom, prepared a delightful surprise for ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... Mariposa House and the Continental as a necessary and useful evil, looked askance at the blazing lights and the surging crowd of Mr. Smith's saloon. They preached against him. When the Rev. Dean Drone led off with a sermon on the text "Lord be merciful even unto this publican Matthew Six," it was generally understood as an invitation to strike Mr. Smith dead. In the same way the sermon at the Presbyterian church the week after was on the text "Lo what now doeth Abiram in ...
— Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town • Stephen Leacock

... thereby gave an aristocratic flavour to the title of his partnership, and who acquired, with this new dignity, the taste for a monocle, a horse, and a good cigar. Following were the members of the medley—the big butcher on his sturdy pony, the "dealer" on his black, raw-boned half-bred, the publican on his stolid old mare, farmers, drovers, after-riders, on cropped and uncropped mounts more accustomed to the slow drudgery of labour than to the rollicking, hard-going hunt; and after them the crowd on foot—village children, farm labourers, and apprentices from ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees

... which the late brewer, Andrews, threw out in his snug parlour some twenty years back, and where he used to sit smoking, with the sash up, in summer afternoons, enjoying himself, good man; and the great room, at the Swan, originally built by the speculative publican, Joseph Allwright, for an assembly-room. That speculation did not answer. The assembly, in spite of canvassing and patronage, and the active exertions of all the young ladies in the neighbourhood, dwindled away, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, No. - 288, Supplementary Number • Various

... impressed me that I bought a large quantity of tobacco from the publican. After that, when I saw any blacks, even if off the road, I would ride over and give some tobacco, which surprised and amused them considerably. I arrived at the public house, at a place known as "Musket Hat," in time for ...
— Reminiscences of Queensland - 1862-1869 • William Henry Corfield

... Finola sharply. 'If you ever gave a thought to anything more recent than the High-King's Court at Tara you would know that the landlords are not the wealthy part of the community any longer. There's many a provincial publican calling himself a Nationalist who could buy up the nearest landlord and every Protestant in the parish along with him. I'm a Protestant myself, born and bred among the class you speak of, ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham

... I don't know that you ought to hear old scandals. But you are too wise to let them harm you. Brand, the father of these two young fellows, married a barmaid, the daughter of a low publican in the neighborhood." ...
— A True Friend - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... him with the same friendliness as before. The character of the publican and sinner is not always practically incompatible with that of the modern Pharisee, for the majority of us scarcely see more distinctly the faultiness of our own conduct than the faultiness of our own arguments, or the dulness ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot

... lost and fallen came to him, for there was something in him that made it easy for them to come and tell him all the burden of their sin and their yearning for a better life. Even one whom he afterward chose as an apostle was a publican when Jesus called him to be his disciple. He took him in among his friends, into his own inner household; and now his name is on one of the foundations of the heavenly city, as an apostle of ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller

... since I joined the Church—of course I ain't denying that there was a time when I knowed the taste of liquor. There ain't no good denying that, and, besides confession is good fer me, it humbles my spirit, Mrs. Ivy, it keeps me from being a publican." ...
— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice

... not to the prejudice of the purchaser. The notice may be given verbally or by a label supplied with the article. A common law notice may also be given. In Sandys v. Small, 1878, 3 Q.B.D. 449, a publican had displayed a placard within the inn to the effect that the spirits sold in his establishment were watered. This was held, as it were, to contract him out of the Food Act. Similarly, in the case of butters that had been adulterated with milk, the vendors, by giving a general notice in the shop, ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... tambourine. Of course to others the disguise was perfect, although it was known to myself, and I passed him—according to an old understanding between us—without the slightest recognition, trusting to a later explanation. At another time, as I was making a professional visit to the wife of a publican at the East End, I saw him, in the disguise of a broken-down artisan, looking into the window of an adjacent pawnshop. I was delighted to see that he was evidently following my suggestions, and in my joy I ventured to tip him a wink; ...
— New Burlesques • Bret Harte

... on the back of Whitehall-place. When this territory was first accidentally discovered by a country gentleman who lost his way in the Strand, some years ago, the original settlers were found to be a tailor, a publican, two eating-house keepers, and a fruit-pie maker; and it was also found to contain a race of strong and bulky men, who repaired to the wharfs in Scotland-yard regularly every morning, about five or six o'clock, to ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens

... legislation, by which the 'Trade' is to be endowed at the expense of the nation's welfare, and is to have its privileges and its powers greatly increased. The government, having yielded to the dictation of the Publican interest, indicated that either the Magistrates must be hindered from exercising their ancient power of not renewing annual licenses when in their discretion they deem such renewal to be against the public good; or else that ...
— The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation • Carry A. Nation

... made a rich feast, and his table was no doubt piled with the beautiful fruits of the plain of Gennesaret, but the eyes of all and the thoughts of all were fixed upon the wonderful Teacher, and Matthew, the publican, ...
— Child's Story of the Bible • Mary A. Lathbury

... forget that I sit under Mr. O'Blareaway, and am to him as a heathen and a publican. Fresh from St. Nepomuc's as he is, he would as soon think of falling in love with an 'Oirish Prodestant,' as with a malignant and a turbaned Turk. Besides, my dear, if the mischief is going to be done, it's ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley

... to be in their hands, at any rate, the period of my candidature. On one day both of us, Mr. Maxwell and I, wanted to go out hunting. We proposed to ourselves but the one holiday during this period of intense labour; but I was assured, as was he also, by a publican who was working for us, that if we committed such a crime he and all Beverley would desert us. From morning to evening every day I was taken round the lanes and by-ways of that uninteresting town, canvassing every voter, exposed to the rain, up to my knees in slush, and ...
— Autobiography of Anthony Trollope • Anthony Trollope

... many of the simple country folk. It was told to a traveller staying at an hostelry situated not far distant from where the murderer's remains hung in chains. He laughed to scorn the strange stories which alarmed the countryside, and laid a wager with the publican that he would visit at midnight the gibbet. The ...
— Bygone Punishments • William Andrews

... who are you?" Said the Violet blue To the Bee, with surprise, At his wonderful size, In her eyeglass of dew. "I, madam," quoth he, "Am a publican Bee, Collecting the tax Of honey and wax. Have ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck

... stood perilously near to admiration; then his religious training swayed him, and his righteousness almost drew from him a contempt of this man's apathy. There was much of the Pharisee's attitude towards the publican in his mood. ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini

... it would be. The old man thought he was going to be taken clear across the Never-Never country and left to roast on a sandhill, hundreds of miles from anywhere, for his sins, and he said he was trying to think of a prayer or two all the time he was yelling. They handed him more whisky from the publican's own bottle. Hushed and cautious inquiries for the Professor (with a big P now) elicited the hushed and cautious fact that he had gone to bed. But old Mac caught the awesome name and glared round, so they hurriedly filled out another for him, from ...
— The Rising of the Court • Henry Lawson

... performers did not dim her brilliance by reason of their own. There was her own dear husband, whose serious recitation was the one entertaining number. There was a Rabbit Inspector who rapped out "The Scout" in a defiant barytone, and a publican whose somewhat uneven tenor was shaken to its depths by the simple pathos of "When Sparrows Build." Mrs. Clarkson could afford to encourage such tyros with marked applause. The only danger was that Sir Julian might think she really ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung

... The other, Ignat Ryabov, a sturdy, broad-shouldered peasant who never does anything and is everlastingly silent, is sitting in the corner under a big string of bread rings. The door, opening inwards, throws a thick shadow upon him, so that Slyunka and Semyon the publican can see nothing but his patched knees, his long fleshy nose, and a big tuft of hair which has escaped from the thick uncombed tangle covering his head. Semyon, a sickly little man, with a pale face and a long sinewy neck, stands ...
— Love and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... unlearned and ignorant, outstripped his whole nation, save the "two or three that have succeeded" in learning Greek, and wrote a philosophical and historical treatise in that language. Also that Matthew, a publican, a member of the most degraded class of the Jews, was equally learned, and published a history in the same tongue. Yet these two marvels of erudition were unknown to Josephus, who expressly states that the two or three who had learned Greek, were "immediately well rewarded for their pains." The ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant

... been commanded before, i.e., tell the fault first "between thee and him," then taking "with thee one or two more," then, to all Christian men capable of hearing the cause: if he refuse to hear their common voice, "let him be unto thee as a heathen man and publican:" (But consider ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin

... most cases collected the revenues of a province by means of a publican or farmer, to whom the taxes were let by auction; but such was the importance of Egypt that the same jealousy which made them think its government too great to be trusted to a man of high rank, made them think its ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 11 (of 12) • S. Rappoport

... of it. If there are no customers, there will be soon a closing of their doors. We call upon all Grocers, Butchers, Tailors, Cabinet Makers, and all decent tradespeople, to see, that would they have a return of prosperity, they must have the stream of cash which goes into the publican's till turned towards their doors. Money spent in manufacturing felons would look well spent on Clothes, Provisions, and Furniture. Besides churches and chapels would be crowded as the jails were emptied, and heaven would ...
— Broken Bread - from an Evangelist's Wallet • Thomas Champness

... him as a royal official. But this is hardly correct. He was to Hammurabi what the Jew of the Middle Ages was to the king then, or the Stock Exchange or Bourse is now. Probably we should not be far wrong in applying to him the term "publican," in the New Testament sense. He owed a certain amount to the treasury, which he recouped from the taxes due from the district for which he contracted. If he did not secure enough, he had to make up the deficit. The ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Laws, Contracts and Letters • C. H. W. Johns

... beautiful stories. One day He told them a story to teach them not to be proud like the Pharisees. 'Two men went up into the Temple to pray: the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank Thee that I am not as other men are; I thank Thee that I am not even as this publican. Twice a week I go without food, and I give away a great deal of money. But the publican, standing ...
— The Good Shepherd - A Life of Christ for Children • Anonymous

... was a very different person, but, except on one occasion, he had not molested our client, and now he visited the house of Carruthers without intruding upon her presence. The man on the bicycle was doubtless a member of those week-end parties at the Hall of which the publican had spoken; but who he was or what he wanted was as obscure as ever. It was the severity of Holmes's manner and the fact that he slipped a revolver into his pocket before leaving our rooms which impressed me with the feeling that ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle

... for the Easter Vacation from Magdalene College. He sat now upon the edge of the surgery table, looking in thoughtful silence at Montgomery and twisting the ends of his small, black, waxed moustache. The second was Purvis, the publican, owner of the chief beer-shop, and well known as the local bookmaker. He was a coarse, clean-shaven man, whose fiery face made a singular contrast with his ivory-white bald head. He had shrewd, light-blue eyes with foxy lashes, and he also ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle

... city of trees, where in spite of a day in the police court and before a judge, and the arrest of our players at the suit not of a Puritan but a publican, and the throwing of currant cake with intent to injure, I received very great personal kindness, a story of his childhood told by my host gave me a fable on which to hang my musings; and the Dublin enthusiast and the American enthusiast who interchanged so many compliments and made so ...
— New Irish Comedies • Lady Augusta Gregory

... past his own, some poor inebriate, coming out reluctantly, holds the door open, and the smell is too much for his new-born virtue. He will go in just for a moment to pass the time of day with his friend the publican and see his last brand of books, but not to buy—I mean to drink—and then he comes across a little volume, the smallest and slimmest of volumes, a mere trifle of a thing, and not dear, but a thing which does not often turn ...
— Books and Bookmen • Ian Maclaren

... have seen him in health, that I might have the pleasure of his conversation. He answered, God had ordered it otherwise. I desired him to prepare himself for a happier life, to acknowledge that he was a sinner, and to repent of his faults: and happening to mention the publican, who acknowledged that he was a sinner, and asked God's mercy, he answered: I am that publican. I went on, and told him, that he must have recourse to Jesus Christ, without whom there is no salvation. He replied, I place all my hope in Jesus Christ. I began ...
— The Life of the Truly Eminent and Learned Hugo Grotius • Jean Levesque de Burigny

... and the new returned, in the withering weeks of drought, The cheque was spent that the shearer earned, and the sheds were all cut out; The publican's words were short and few, and the publican's looks were black — And the time had come, as the shearer knew, to ...
— In the Days When the World Was Wide and Other Verses • Henry Lawson

... of Sir Hedworth Williamson. He afterwards became gamekeeper to the Marquis of Londonderry, and in that capacity acquired a reputation as an unerring shot, and a man of unusual physical strength and courage. He afterwards married, and became a publican at Whitburn, and in the course of few years purchased a little property, and occupied himself in the superintendence of dock works and stone quarries. In this latter capacity he acquired the skill in quarrying, on which his fame chiefly rests. Having a turn for a romantic life, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 218, December 31, 1853 • Various

... blamed. When we stopped in a tavern the publican eyed us gingerly, nor did his demeanour brighten till we showed him the colour of our cash. The natives along the coast were all dubious; and "bean- feasters" from London, dashing past in coaches, cheered and jeered and shouted insulting things after us. But before we were done with the ...
— The People of the Abyss • Jack London

... came evidently from the depths of the soul. Their natural love for vivid metaphor, combined with much ardor, gave great vividness to their prayers. They begged that the dog might have a single crumb from the table of his master; at another time, they were smiting their breasts by the side of the publican; at another, they were prodigals, hungry, naked, and far from their father's house; again, they sink in the sea, and cry out, "Lord save me, I perish;" again, poor, diseased, outcast lepers, they came to the great Physician for a cure. Those who had given themselves to Christ, now ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume I. • Rufus Anderson

... the landlord was evidently a little flurried, and began to rub his hands, edge away from his corner, and make several profound publican bows; while the orator took no other notice of my companion than to talk rather louder than before, and with, as I thought, something of an air of defiance. Master Simon, however, as I have before said, sheered off from the porch, and passed on, pressing my arm within his, and whispering ...
— Bracebridge Hall • Washington Irving

... said brother Cross, rebukingly, "beware of the temptation to vain-glory. Be not like the Pharisee, disdainful of the publican. To be too well pleased with one's self is to be ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms

... and in the restaurants, on the promenades and in all public places. They have spoken out before the lower class as if it were not present, and, from all this eloquence poured out without precaution, some bubbles besprinkle the brain of the artisan, the publican, the messenger, the shopkeeper, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... valluble mislny were once fimiliar,—the unfortnt Jeames de la Pluche, fomly so selabrated in the fashnabble suckles, now the pore Jeames Plush, landlord of the 'Wheel of Fortune' public house. Yes, that is me; that is my haypun which I wear as becomes a publican—those is the checkers which hornyment the pillows of my dor. I am like the Romin Genral, St. Cenatus, equal to any emudgency of Fortun. I, who have drunk Shampang in my time, aint now abov droring a pint of Small ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray

... language so highly extolled by Mr. Wordsworth varies in every county, nay in every village, according to the accidental character of the clergyman, the existence or non-existence of schools; or even, perhaps, as the exciseman, publican, and barber happen to be, or not to be, zealous politicians, and readers of the weekly newspaper pro bono publico. Anterior to cultivation the lingua communis of every country, as Dante has well observed, exists everywhere in parts, and nowhere ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various

... incontinently vanished. Captain Muggs intimated something about credit. The landlord shook his head. Captain Muggs was grieved, and the landlord consulted the flytraps on the ceiling, still extending his open hand, with the palm upwards, in the direction of the officer. Finding the publican obdurate, the captain proposed to leave his uniform and equipments in pawn, and ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage

... first day of the first month, sell any wine under one-quarter of a cask, neither by quart, gallon or any other measure, but only such taverners as are licensed to sell by the gallon." And in order still further to protect and encourage the publican in his Tested and exclusive right, it was further enacted that, "Any taverners or other persons who shall inform against any transgressor, shall have one-half of the fines for his encouragement." This law contained a section which forbids any person licensed "to sell strong waters, or any ...
— Grappling with the Monster • T. S. Arthur

... tell you that, or any other publican round the country. It never will stick to me. I don't know why, but it never will. I've had my luck, too. Oh, laws! I might have had my house, just as grand as Polly Hooker this moment, only I never could stick to it like Tom Crinkett. I've drank cham—paign ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope

... educational reform for a quarter of a century, because, instead of seeking to enable the citizen to refresh himself without being poisoned or inebriated and to get the children thoroughly taught, they have wanted primarily to revenge their outraged temperance principles on the publican and their outraged Nonconformist principles on the Church. Of such Liberals it may be said that the destructive revolutionary tradition is in their bones; they will reform nothing unless it can be done at the expense of ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker

... looks of these children of the sun and the degenerate offsets of northern men; I have often observed with feelings of sorrow the sickly aspect of the children of some road-side store-keeper, or publican of the white race, as they sit languidly before their parents' door, with sallow parchment skins and lack-lustre eyes, the very emblems of malaria, possessing neither the strength nor the desire ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power

... corner, midway between the fireside and a low arched door leading to my bedroom. Its fame is diffused so extensively throughout the neighbourhood, that I have often the satisfaction of hearing the publican, or the baker, and sometimes even the parish-clerk, petitioning my housekeeper (of whom I shall have much to say by-and-by) to inform him the exact time by Master Humphrey's clock. My barber, to whom I ...
— Master Humphrey's Clock • Charles Dickens

... this wise. He was the eldest son of inspector Corley of the G division, lately deceased, who had married a certain Katherine Brophy, the daughter of a Louth farmer. His grandfather Patrick Michael Corley of New Ross had married the widow of a publican there whose maiden name had been Katherine (also) Talbot. Rumour had it (though not proved) that she descended from the house of the lords Talbot de Malahide in whose mansion, really an unquestionably fine residence of its kind and well worth seeing, her mother or aunt or some relative, a ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce

... this, our people offered a high price. The heathen who owned it refused and, to annoy us, raised mean houses round the synagogue. The Jewish youths interrupted the workmen; and the wealthier of the community—headed by John, a publican—subscribed eight talents, and sent them to Florus as a bribe, that he might order ...
— For the Temple - A Tale of the Fall of Jerusalem • G. A. Henty

... been able to say why Abraham Boosey, the publican, had christened his henchman with an appellation so vulgar, to say the least of it—so amazingly cacophonous. The man's real name was plain Charles Bird; but Abraham Boosey had christened him Muggins and Muggins he remained. Muggins had had some beer and was asleep, ...
— A Tale of a Lonely Parish • F. Marion Crawford



Words linked to "Publican" :   Great Britain, barkeeper, tapster, bartender, tavern keeper, United Kingdom, tapper, U.K., barkeep, mixologist, barman, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland



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